Brandon Marshes

This looks much more muted lyth-wise than the other and yet the chems are the same. For what it is worth I prefer this one. The pink in the other is just too strong for the subject matter, I feel.

Is this kind of variation using the same chems just a part of the lyth process? I think Tim Rudman said that one of the attractions of lyth is that no two prints are exactly the same but if you wanted a particular look, say a more muted lyth look, it would be disconcerting if the variation was this large between prints.

pentaxuser

Hi pentaxuser

There are 2 things to bear in mind here.

First off the colours that you see on the monitor and what the actual prints look like are not the same. My scanner is way off. I try and adjust the print scans in photoshop so that they look like the actual prints, but they are never perfect. I use a profiled colour monitor and use a colour managed workflow. Even with this I find that when I upload them to APUG they change slightly again. I don't know if I am doing something wrong or whether this is just the way it goes. Anyway the bottom line is that the images on screen are slightly 'out' from true.

The second thing is that lith can be controlled only within certain limits. This print was the 2nd one out of the batch and the owl was the 9th print. As the developer exhausts and the bromide levels rise more vivid colours result with this paper so the initial prints are slightly pink and the later ones start to get very pink indeed. Different developers can produce quite different results (like Fotospeed) and Moersch SE5 has several additives that change the outcome. There is a window of consistency that lasts around 6 prints at this dilution where there is not so much variation. So if you want consistency it is possible, but it is difficult to achieve and requires meticulous notetaking and experimentation. I don't mind a little variation and I think this dilution gives me more or less the colours I want between prints 3 and 7. That is a pale pink. Toning introduces a whole new level of variation on top, but I am sometimes using Adostab which deepens the blacks, but doesn't change the colours like selenium. Also the fixer can affect the results as well. Too strong and it can bleach back the highlights and reduce the colours.